


soldier's eyes playin' tricks, sandwich

by fiddleogold_againstyoursoul



Series: shooter [1]
Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Angst, Cold Dom Joseph Christiansen, Destructive Habits, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-06 09:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11597739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul/pseuds/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul
Summary: Robert wanted. He got, he was taken from; he remembers. Joseph is not a kind man, but his hands are soft and lips sugared and sometimes that's all you need to last the night.





	soldier's eyes playin' tricks, sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> mildly dubious consent, but nothing neither doesn't want. didn't put this in the tags because after the first time it doesn't apply anymore.
> 
> originally titled respira but then i decided that title better suited another fic in the works rn.

Sometimes it's so loud and so damn obvious it's like everyone in the neighborhood knows.

(or at least _should_ know.)

The blue sweater wrapped around Joseph's shoulders that no one seems to remember used to belong to him. The barely noticeable looks Joseph slides him from across the room, like he's only obliging Robert and Robert should _know this,_ should've known it ages ago. They drive him crazy. The way Mary's eyes go knowing when they're halfway through their seventeenth hundred drink and he accidentally chokes on his when she mentions her perfect God fearing, white picket fence owning, lawn mowing, brownie baking husband. The way his skin feels a little too tight and palms go sweaty when he thinks about hot, hot summer nights with bright blue eyes staring down at him. The blood roaring in his ears when he jerks himself off to half memories and half fantasies and seethes at the idea of both, Joseph's name breaking on his lips with a voice he never thought he'd hear crack again, so long now after  _her_ death.

It can be terribly loud, sometimes.

Robert closes his eyes and leans into the back of his truck. The night is quiet around him, air heavy with the silence. In the distance, he hears cicadas faintly chirping. Blades of grass rustling. 

_and other times, it can be so fucking quiet._

He went to the bakesale, today. The new neighbour was there with Joseph. They were smiling. Robert wanted to tell the guy to run. Run before he's pulled too deep and gets tangled in his own thoughts, too. Run before Joseph sticks that fucking knife behind his perfect fucking grin into his chest and carves his heart out. He didn't, though. He won't. 

He won't - he can't  _possibly_ be the only one caught in this mess.

_is that selfish? that's got to be a little selfish._

He's a selfish person.

He opens his eyes. The city stretches out in front of him, blinking lights for miles. It's strangely serene. He feels exhaustion wash over him, but he can't sleep, now. Not with the forest so near and the paranoia he plays off as jokes still rattling inside of his head and the knife in his jacket so relatively far if it comes to that. He doesn't remember the last time he's slept. He doesn't remember the last time he's showered, decently. He should take one, soon. He should call Val. He should call his parents. He should...

_you're not gonna do any of that._

He's too tired to argue with himself.

 _(Frustrated,_ really. Not just tired, though that, too. He's always tired. Always angry. Always regretful.)

Robert makes a discontented little noise in the back of his throat and gets back behind the wheel.

 

* * *

 

The first time they fucked, it was messy.

It starts with a drunk text the night before. Robert wakes up in the morning to a mound of new notifications and a mortifying message in his inbox in reply to a stream of messages he doesn't remember sending, all gushing about how he bet Joseph was a secret dom. It's all much more lewd than he usually remembers his drunk self being. Christ. He slams his head into the wall of his bedroom a few times before remembering to check the reply.

 _If you'd like to test your theory,_ and Robert can almost hear the amused tone in Joseph's voice,  _here's where I'll be at six tonight._

Joseph finds him outside the theatre, schooling the nervous expression on his face into a somewhat nonchalant one and whittling. He raises an eyebrow at the piece of wood in Robert's hand. And then he laughs. Robert _hates_ that laugh. Joseph throwing back his head and baring such a long, beautiful white throat. Perfect straight teeth gleaming inside his open mouth and the way his eyes dance. He nearly cuts himself on the whittling knife, which he quickly slips back into his sleeve. For later, he thinks, but there is no later. Joseph straightens, still smiling.

He puts a soft, warm hand on Robert's arm, applies a little pressure, and Robert falls apart from there.

_stupid. stupid. stupid -_

They go to Joseph's. (Mary and the kids are out of town, gone to see some ice show: she bitched about it, but Robert can tell she's glad to have some time with the children, even if most of it will just be spent in some stupid skating rink. He doesn't think Joseph would trust her with the children for longer than the weekend, anyway.) Joseph puts that same soft, warm hand on Robert's arm as the latter guides the wheel of his pickup back to the cul-de-sac, calm voice instructing him just how to pull into that perfect driveway and up. 

(He knows that he's making a mistake. It's alright. It's only one night to pay for curiosity.)

_it was only ever supposed to be one night._

Robert shuffles into the living room behind Joseph, scratching at his stubble. Joseph doesn't speak. He suddenly puts a hand on the small of Robert's back as they go up the stairs, and Robert feels all the hairs on his body stand up at once. His skin crawls where Joseph's fingers are. 

"I -"

"Hmm?"

Joseph stops. Robert swallows. His palms are sweaty.

"Nothing," he lies.

Joseph smiles. And then he pushes him into the bedroom.

It's big, which is a given. Another given is how fucking clean it is: spotless. You could eat a four course dinner off the polished wood floor. Robert pushes away the thought of his own cluttered bed as Joseph steers him towards the one in the centre of the room. Soft, warm hands turn forceful as Joseph strips off his jacket, lips press to his like he's breathing Robert instead of oxygen. He pushes, and Robert tumbles into the pristine white bedsheets. He feels light. Joseph kisses his open mouth, pulls at his lower lip with his teeth. He pushes a tongue into Robert's mouth, hands fisting in Robert's shirt. 

_fuck. fuck. fuck -_

Robert's head is spinning. He kisses back and hands push him further down; Joseph sinks his perfect straight teeth into a particularly meaty part of his neck and he yelps.

"Shut up," Joseph says, drawing back and regarding him with cool eyes. He doesn't look affected in the slightest. Robert's mouth is open and he's panting and he's well aware his face is flushed, but Joseph looks like he just walked out of one of his stupid youth meetings. "Look at me. Can you be quiet?"

He swallows. He nods.

Joseph smiles.

He's not as patient as a minister should be. He's rough and hard and angry, strong and demanding. And yet his hands and lips are soft when they're not squeezing, shoving, controlling. Robert chokes on a moan as Joseph bites at his neck, kissing and soothing the angry marks when he pulls away. He pulls away, and Robert breathes, heavy, erratic, his chest heaving and falling.

"Stay," Joseph says, like an order.

Robert doesn't move a muscle as Joseph rummages through his clothes on the floor. He hears the all too familiar hiss of his knife, and a shiver overcomes him.

_wait._

"Have you ever used this on anything other than wood?"

"Not that I can remember," Robert says. Joseph looks at him with hungry eyes, turning the knife over in his hands. It's so sexy and so fucking terribly awful it makes him forget to breathe. He tries to sit up, and Joseph makes a deep growl in his throat. He settles back down, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable he is and how Joseph is still fully dressed with a fucking knife in his hand, for God's sake. He's not the king of good decisions, but this could be a potentially terrible one even for his standards.

"Do you think you'd remember this?"

And then the knife is pressing into his stomach, not enough to cut but still a pricking sensation that makes what self preservation he has left scream for him to run and not come back here, to the devilishly sexy youth minister and his stupid fucking soft hands.

"Are you gonna - fuck," Robert says, cut off as Joseph flicks the knife upwards in a swift motion and his shirt tears. Joseph runs the knife in jagged zig zag over the material still clinging together till it comes apart, too, showing the fine, dark hairs covering Robert's chest and stomach and thickening downwards to where his jeans are slowly tenting. "Oh." It's a little breathless.

"Thought I was going to cut you?"

"Dunno exactly what to expect," he breathes, and Joseph laughs before he kisses him, hard and angry and cruel. He squirms. He likes this more than he should.

_don't be an idiot._

"You fidget a lot," Joseph whispers into his skin, and he tenses. Strong, warm hands sink into his hips, fingers dig in so hard he knows they'll bruise. He breathes in the scent of Joseph, freshly baked brownies and mint toothpaste and nothing like what he probably smells like, sweaty and grimey with last night's whiskey still hanging around him like a bad memory. He took a shower before coming here, actually shampooed his hair out and shit, but he still feels filthy. He feels bad for it. "Do you need me to do something about that?"

"Depends on what you're gonna do," Robert says, voice breaking on the last bit as Joseph's hands stray southwards. He bites down on a moan and tries to regulate his breathing.

"Keep fidgeting and you'll find out."

He obligingly lays still, lets Joseph's hands roam over his body. Joseph pinches a nipple and Robert shivers, swallows a yelp as he moves onto another and twists. He's painfully hard, but he won't move. The thought of what Joseph might do to him if he did only serves to further stoke his raging hard on.

"Good boy," Joseph says, as appraising as if he were a dog, and Robert's stomach twists, but not exactly in a bad way. "A little frustrated?"

"You're still fully dressed."

It comes out as a whine. Robert flushes.

"Mm. Want to do something about that?"

_fuck. like, fuck. like, major fuck._

Robert reaches out and puts his hands against the slightly damp material of Joseph's offensive pink shirt, feels the way his body responds to the touch. It's hard, muscled, more than what you'd expect from a fucking youth minister. He swallows and makes to pull it over Joseph's head, but a hand catches his.

The knife is suddenly pressed to his neck. He stays perfectly still as Joseph stares down at him, eyes hungry and yet at the same time so fucking detached, so impossibly uncaring it makes his chest ache.

"You gonna, uh," he begins, but Joseph presses the knife in deeper and fuck, it's starting to actually prick now, and fuck, did he sign up for this? He feels his pulse pick up, and panic seizes him; Joseph catches it and suddenly the knife is gone again, and he's breathing weird.

"Robert."

"I, uh. Gotta give a man some warning, Jesus. Didn't they teach you that in minister school, or something?" He fights to slow his pulse down, ignore the way Joseph's eyes had made every part of him that still was scared and longing beneath layers and layers of nonchalance burn.

Something trickles down his neck. Joseph  _did_ draw blood, after all. He swallows.

"Do you want to stop?"

"No. I mean. No. Definitely not, fuck that." He lifts a hand to touch the cut and thinks better of it. "Just - the knife, not now."

Joseph hums in response and leans in to plant a soft kiss on his cheekbone, almost as if in apology, but Robert knows better. He puts his hands back against Joseph's body, pushes them beneath his shirt and feels the firm pecs.

"Come on," Joseph says, and he surges forward, kissing and biting at Joseph's neck and tugging at that stupid pink shirt. Joseph makes a sharp, pleased exhale when he drags his teeth over an evidently sensitive area, and he swells in pride, rakes his nails over the firm stomach and yanks the shirt over Joseph's head. 

Joseph has a very nice body. It looks soft, fine blond hairs and slight curves, but it's rock hard as Robert drags his hands over it, admiring every dip and swell. Joseph's hands are still on his hips, and suddenly they grab him by them and hoist him onto a - still dressed - lap, and his grunt breaks into a whine ~~, and he hates himself for it.~~

Now he's straddling Joseph, breaths shaky for nerves, and he shuts his eyes as Joseph grinds up into him, kills the whimper rising in his throat. He wants. He needs.

Joseph gives.

_he gives and gives and gives but more he takes away and it's more that Robert misses when it's light out and he's lying empty with his feelings in open space._

There's a click of a belt, falling onto the floor, the sound of a zipper being worked.

Joseph flips Robert around on his stomach and Robert squirms, the half hearted protest dying in his throat; Joseph pins him down and rakes his nails over his back so hard it  _hurts_ and he cries out, hands digging into the bedspread.

He doesn't know when he realises it, but it's probably when Joseph sinks slick fingers into him and twists them that he thinks,

_this man does not want, does not need, will not ever be left longing._

Because Joseph takes for his own, fiercely, unquestioned and unstoppable. He pushes into Robert and the latter scrabbles for a hold, anything, God; he's left panting and whimpering as Joseph grabs him by the hips and pulls him so close with such force he can't help but  _feel_ with a shuddery ache in his chest how Joseph has him at his mercy completely. His neck stings. His eyes sting. He chokes on his own sobs as Joseph angles his thrusts, so close and yet not daring enough to let himself go.

It's agony. It's pain. It's pleasure, waves and waves of it hitting him so hard and so fast he can barely breathe.

"J -  _fuck, f-fuck,_ Jesus motherfucking  _Christ, Joseph,"_ he gasps, and Joseph laughs, a little breathless as well, and it aches like a motherfucker. "Fucking  _hell,_ God, oh my God, Jose -"

Joseph puts warm hands on the back of his thighs and  _yanks_ him closer than what previously seemed possible, still pounding into him mercilessly and Robert screams. He's shaking, begging,  _please, fuck, please, Joseph, let me,_ and tears are streaming down his face and he's a fucking wreck, he knows that, but God, he needs this so bad it hurts, and he's got to have it,  _please._

He's still shaking when they're finished and he's lying there, sweaty and a little broken and bruised all over. Joseph carefully cleans him up, swipes a little antiseptic over the cut and presses another thoughtless little kiss to his cheekbone, and he's still shaking.

His heart only quietens when Joseph gets in next to him and pulls him close, hands a little softer, more gentle, hunger satisfied. He mutters some stupid Jesus joke and Joseph huffs a laugh; he curls in closer and closes his eyes and just lets himself be held for a little while.

It's temporary. It was supposed to be temporary. It was only ever supposed to be one night.

Robert lies to himself more than he does anyone else.

 

* * *

 

Neil obligingly pours him a third - watered down - whiskey and he knocks most of it back in one go. It burns as it goes down, something awful and something awfully  _comforting_ in its awfulness. He can't think straight. His head is fuzzy. He doesn't usually get this way after three, but it's been a long fucking week.

"Might wanna take it easy there, sailor."

Mary settles down beside him and he rumbles in reply. She squints at him.

"Been kind of out of it lately, haven't you? What's up?"

"I'm just tired," he says, and he feels like shit for saying it. Mary scrutinises him. He wonders if her eyes can map out all the places he's imagined Joseph has touched him. The places Joseph  _has._ "Look. I don't wanna talk about it."

"Suit yourself."

She orders a drink of her own and inspects her fingernails as she waits. She almost scares him when she speaks up again. "How's Val been?"

"She's. Good?"

"God." Mary rolls her eyes. Robert sighs and puts his head into his hands. "Look, Robert, I love you, but you gotta get your shit together."

He grunts. She rolls her eyes again, a Mary classic.

"I'm serious, you know. I wasn't gonna push it, but -" 

"A pep talk isn't going to help me, Mary."

"Alright." Her drink finally comes, and she gives Neil a particularly barbarous smile he only waves off. Robert, despite himself, feels the corner of his mouth hook up at that.  _Another Mary classic._ "I'm just saying. A word, and I'll hook you up with that therapist Joseph keeps asking me to go to. Something about keeping our family together, for Pete's sake. Ugh. I hate shrinks."

"And you figure I'd be any more friendly towards them?"

 _"She's_ cute," Mary says. "I mean. For shrink standards." And then she shrieks like a banshee with laughter. Robert winces as people look over. "Still pretty cute, though."

"Well, you've sold me. I only talk to people because they're aesthetically pleasing."

"You're so good for my ego."

"I know."

They sip their drinks in silence. It's pleasant. Being with Mary doesn't demand a lot of emotional labour. Her presence, though loud and at times very taxing, is just what it is. Friendly. Companionable. Never asking for more than he can give. Or  _wants_ to give, for the matter. 

He fucks good things up.

"Do you love him?"

Mary blinks. She turns towards him slowly, eyes wide like she doesn't know what he's fucking talking about. When she does. When it's so painfully obvious she's  _got_ to. She turns and Robert feels his chest tighten, wonders who in their fucking right mind would choose him over her. Wonderful Mary. Beautiful Mary. Smart, perceptive Mary. Her wonderful, beautiful, smart, perceptive eyes soften, now. Pity. Sadness. Reluctant acquiescence to his curiosity.

"Are you asking for him, or you?"

She knows. Of course she knows. 

"I don't talk to your husband."

They never talk. Their meetings are brief, and few and far between. It always begins with Robert crawling back to the one thing he can't keep running away from. Some semblance of perfection. Hot breath on his neck and perfect white teeth digging into his shoulder, soft kisses on stinging bruises and nails raking down his back. Chuckles. Poorly timed Jesus jokes and the ache in his chest the morning after, when the sheets beside him are cold and empty and bloodied. His blood. His tears. And yet he wants all of it as badly as the last time.

He wants it  _now,_ he realises, and the realisation hits him so strongly he's breathless.

"That makes two of us," Mary says, huffing a little in amusement. 

 

* * *

 

Joseph's sitting on his doorstep when he pulls his pickup truck into his driveway. There's a familiar blue sweater draped around his shoulders and a tray of cookies in his hands. Robert stumbles onto his lawn, and Joseph looks up.

"Good evening."

"It's late," he says, and he's surprised his words don't slur. His head is clearer than it's ever been. That scares him.

"Yeah, isn't it?"

"You're here."

He swallows. His head hurts. His chest hurts. Joseph just looks at him, still sitting with the cookies in his hands. Eyes gleaming.

"I'm here."

_mary's at the bar, getting her nails sunk into some other unsuspecting prey. you know._

It's obvious enough, the implication. They've done this before. Been here before. Robert bites the inside of his cheek and holds his hands out for the cookies. Joseph pushes the tray into his hands and as he does, yanks Robert onto the steps and into a terribly forceful kiss he's sure the new neighbour could probably see if he poked his little head out of his bedroom window.

But the new neighbour is a good man, unlike either of them, and good men have good sleep schedules. Good men don't sleep with married men. Married men don't seduce bad men.

Robert is a bad man who needs to reevaluate his ethics.

"Did you miss me?" Joseph says, breath hot on Robert's ear. What was that about ethics? The blond pulls away, and Robert realises he does have a choice, always has. 

Choice may be a fuckin' illusion, sure, a trick of the light and luck and shit like that, but Joseph's willing to play that game. 

Robert knows this. Knows a lot of other things, too.

That Joseph will never force someone to give him what he wants. That Joseph never asks twice. That Joseph does want, just not him. Just his body, something Joseph can cut up and mark for his own. His heart. The escape he provides.

_do you think you'd remember this?_

Robert thinks about regret. About bad decisions. About a promise to himself that the first time would be the last, and that the next would be the last, and then the next, and the one after that, and then some. He thinks about Mary, looking at him with barely shielded pity in her eyes.

 _sorry, sailor,_ they seemed to say.  _he got you in deep, huh?_

 _run,_ his body screams. Instead he opens his mouth, and whispers, whether to the Mary in his imagination or in response to Joseph's question,

"...yeah."

 

* * *

 

Joseph's kissing him, but there's nothing behind it. Passionate, sure, the best kiss anyone's probably ever given him, sure, but the illusion fades when Robert sees the look in his eyes and remembers what kind of a person he's sleeping with.

Trick of the light, remember?

He puts his hands on both sides of Joseph's face and pushes, and Joseph pulls away, eyes scrutinising him. He breathes. He's queasy.

"Stop?"

"Wait," he says.

Joseph sits back onto his haunches and does exactly that. He doesn't look angry. He looks concerned, rather, and that only twists the knife stuck in Robert's ribcage.

"Robert?"

"Just shut up for a second," he says, putting his head in his hands. There's a headache drumming at his temples. He feels Joseph's hands stroking the sides of his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes. It's so soft it bewilders him. He doesn't deserve softness. Pain is all he's justified in receiving, and yet. And yet.

"Robert," Joseph says. 

He pushes his face into Joseph's hands, lets himself be stroked and pet and looked at. Vulnerable. 

"Sorry."

"You're drunk."

"Sorry," he says, again.

"Shh. Oh, honey." 

"I'm drunk," he says. The buzz is still there. Drowning out all other noise in his head. Just an infernal buzzing that won't stop, and the heartbeat that's been racing since Joseph kissed him on the steps. "Fuck. Joseph."

"When did you last sleep?"

He doesn't care, Robert knows. Not really. But it's so nice to pretend.

"I - dunno."

"Robert."

"I dunno."

Joseph sighs, a barely audible sound that flips him over and punches him in the gut. He presses slightly against Robert's chest, and Robert goes down, no room for doubt or questioning. His eyes flicker shut. His eyes are closed, but he's still so dreadfully awake and so lonely.

"Let me," Joseph says, and he feels his jacket peeling away, feels soft hands pull at his clothes till they come over his head and limbs. Till he's bare and shaking. "Look at you. Just look at you."

"Fuck."

Joseph kisses him. He kisses back, weak. 

"I'm so fucked," he says, out loud without meaning to be, and Joseph's eyes widen before they crinkle at the edges, before he leans back down to press another kiss to Robert's cheekbone. He's so tired. He's just so incredibly tired he could pass out right now and Joseph could steal his organs and he'd be none the wiser.

"Shh."

Joseph tugs him closer. Robert breathes in. Out.  _He don't want you for shit,_ he thinks, and yet. And yet. He squeezes his eyes shut and curls into the touch, relishing the way Joseph's firm fingers card into his curls and massage his scalp gently. 

"Fuck," he murmurs, and hears a soft laugh in return.

He falls asleep to a low humming of some obscure hymn he doesn't bother to recall from his church-going days, and wakes up to brightness and a cold, sick feeling in his stomach that turns to just another load in his sink.

 

* * *

 

_he told me he wanted me, once. he gave me a stick n' poke and kissed me on the cheek when I said it hurt and said it was supposed to. he took me out on his stupid yacht and told me the whales were singing to us as he drew lines with his nails into my skin._

_he told me he was leaving her._

_and like a fucking idiot I believed him. and I_ wanted  _that, for fuck's sake._

Robert squeezes his eyes shut and thinks about nothing. Everything. Space between fingers, hands on hands and hands in hands and hands against his chest pushing and grabbing and twisting. 

A knife.

Blood.

Tears.

He breathes, slow and easy. 

_my mistake. mistakes, plural. these are my mistakes._

He's made a whole fucking lot of them. 

Joseph moves next to him, groggy in the morning light. He doesn't have to contend with a terrible hangover. He has places to be. Robert keeps still as Joseph presumably slings his legs over the side of the bed, pads across the room to fetch his clothing. He doesn't even breathe.

The front door clicks shut, and he opens his eyes. 

Weeks will pass. Maybe months. He'll still be waiting. He'll still be drinking. He'll still have a shitty work ethic and sleep schedule and he'll still not have the guts to call his daughter and talk things over like he fucking should have years ago.

"Fuck," he says, and he puts his hands over his eyes and breathes. "Fuck."

**Author's Note:**

> DUDE. guys. i never knew Americans didn't use the word "cinema". frankly it kind of threw me off when i had to Google the American equivalent. holy shit.
> 
> anyway, i hope y'all liked the fic! it's my first DDADS one so it might be a lil OOC, sjsjsj. 
> 
> i'm on Tumblr under Theswiftone27, and IG under @asian_dreamdaddy. pay me a visit!


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